So he lay there, among the thistles, blanketed by the morning fog.
It wasn’t long before he heard his name, carried on the wind.
“Captain Tamerlaine!”
He heard the call over and over, like a herd of cows. Torin pulled himself along the ground, deeper into the thistles, oblivious to the needles because more than anything, he didn’t want his guard to find him like this. Like a coward who had run, who couldn’t even rise to his feet and clean his wounds and recover his sword, which he had dropped like a novice.
He lay there and prayed they would all go away. He pressed his face into the ground and gritted his teeth against the pain in his arm and tried to calm his mind, but he wondered how long the enchantment would fetter him. A day? Several days?
He needed to get up. Get up!
And then he saw her. She walked past the thistle patch, her dark hair catching his eye in the fog.
Sidra.
At once, he began to crawl to her, through the thistles. She hadn’t seen him. She was walking away, but her black hair was his marker in the mist—she was his refuge—and Torin dragged himself free from the thistles and up to his feet.
He swayed for a moment. The world spun and the fog was deceptive. He lost sight of her and felt the sting of his wounds again, the panic and the fear that had made him run. But that fear was nothing compared to what he felt when he parted his lips to call her name.
Sidra!
It rang in his mind, but no sound emerged from his mouth. Only a roaring silence.
He tried again, but his voice was lost. He couldn’t speak, and he realized what the first enchanted blade had done when it nicked his forearm.
He stumbled over a pile of loose stones. The sound of the falling rocks brought Sidra back around, and Torin watched as she reemerged from the fog. He watched her eyes widen the moment she saw him, ragged and desperate.
“Torin,” she breathed and stretched out her hand.
He couldn’t hold himself up. He leaned into her, a woman who didn’t reach his shoulder in height, and yet she steadied him.
And even as he pressed his face into her hair and wept, he could make no sound.
CHAPTER 19
Sidra listened to the rain as she stood at the kitchen table, grinding an endless pile of herbs. She had been crushing them for what felt like hours now, until her hands were numb, until every mixture she could create had been made and spread over Torin’s wounds. The one on his shoulder was healing swiftly—the shallow wound stung by fear. But the cut on his forearm, the one that had stolen his voice … Sidra couldn’t staunch its slow but steady ooze. And enchanted wounds, while miserable to suffer through, were known to heal twice as fast as mortal wounds with the proper care.
What was she missing? Other than my faith, she thought with exasperation, setting down her pestle. She stared at the array of dried herbs she had spread over her table, the fresh bundles that hung from the timber beams. The honey pot and the bowl of butter and the small jar of oil. She was missing something that would heal his wound and return his voice, and she didn’t know what it was.
Weary, she created a new salve to try and carried the bowl into the bedroom. Torin was asleep, his mouth slightly ajar, his long legs nearly dangling off the foot of the bed. He was shirtless, his chest rising and falling with deep measured breaths, but she knew he would awaken soon. She had drawn eight moon thistle needles from his hands and face; he would be prey to nightmares, despite the stout sleeping tonic she had given him hours ago.
He looked so vulnerable, so young, she thought, gazing at him. Sidra wondered if they would have been friends years ago if their paths had ever crossed, but then she thought no, probably not.
Quietly, she sat beside him on the bed and peeled back the damp linen that covered his wounds, then coated them with her new salve. Feeling the cold trace of magic in his skin, she took out her frustration on the fresh bolt of linen, which she tore into strips. She finished redressing the wounds and watched as the lower cut quickly bled through its bandage. It wasn’t healing but growing worse. And she felt her first tremor of fear.
What am I missing?
It was then that Sidra fully acknowledged the truth. She didn’t know if she would be able to heal Torin. Her faith was still some strange, broken mirror in her chest, the pieces sharp and jagged, reflecting years of her life out of order.
She covered her face with her hands, her breath hitching. She could smell the countless herbs on her palms, secrets that she had always known how to wield, and she let the truth wash over her until it felt like she was drowning in her own skin.
I don’t know how to heal him.
The rain continued to fall, and Sidra remained at Torin’s side. Eventually she lowered her hands and reached for the wooden figurine of Lady Whin of the Wildflowers. Maisie had left it at the bedside days ago, and Sidra had yet to touch it. But she claimed it now, tracing the spirit’s long hair, the flowers that bloomed from her fingers, the extraordinary details of her lovely face.
How easy it would be if faith was something tangible like a figurine, something she could hold in her hands, seeing all of the details and how they made the whole. And yet, didn’t the earth prove its faithfulness to her, year after year? Even in winter, when it fell dormant? Sidra always knew the flowers and the grass and the fruit would return come spring.
Even with those memories, she had no prayers to whisper. There seemed to be nothing but emptiness and exhaustion in her, and Sidra set the figurine back down, closing her eyes just for a moment.
She was dozing, sitting upright on the bed, when the dog let out a shrill bark.
Sidra stood, her mixing bowl clattering to the floor. Torin continued to sleep, oblivious to the alert. The dog Yirr had remained in the front yard since Torin had brought him to Sidra.
She listened as he barked again. Warning sounds.
She suddenly wished she hadn’t sent Torin’s guards away. A group of them had hovered in the common room and the yard, anxious as Sidra had cared for their captain. She had seen the fear and humiliation in Torin’s face. He wanted all of his guard gone. He didn’t want them to behold him like this.
So Sidra had ordered them back to Sloane, and now she wished she had let at least one of them remain.
Yirr continued to bark, and Sidra stepped into the common room. It was late afternoon, and the light was failing. But she saw the gleam of her paring knife on the table, and she took it in her hand before approaching the door.
She stood for a rigid moment, breathing against the wood, listening as Yirr endlessly barked. The door wasn’t locked, and she dared to open it by a sliver, gazing out into the rain-smeared yard. There was Yirr, his black-and-white coat a clear marker in the storm. He was planted on the stone path that led to the threshold, barking at two slim figures who stood just within the gate.
Sidra’s fear abated the moment she recognized Mirin and Frae.
“Hush, Yirr,” she said, opening the door wider. “Mirin? Come inside, out of the rain.”
The dog consented to sit, letting the visitors approach, although Mirin still appeared wary. She removed the hood of her drenched cloak, Frae close at her side, as they stepped into the common room.
“It’s good to see you both,” Sidra said, setting her knife aside. She smiled tenderly at Frae. “How can I help you?”
“I wanted to first ask how Torin is,” Mirin said, her eyes darting to the bedroom. “I heard the news he was wounded.”